


Undertow

by timepatches



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Tattoos, Fluff, Multi, Polygrumps, it's literally all fluff and i'm not even sorry, tattoo!AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-11
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-25 22:21:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4978759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timepatches/pseuds/timepatches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arin and Suzy have been marked by each other's tattoos since they were teenagers, but when another's mark appears on Arin neither of them can figure out who it belongs to. Danny, on the other hand, has carried Arin's tattoo in secret for far too long, and can't bring himself to ruin his best friend's marriage, even when his mark appears on his best friend.<br/>Angst and beach related fun ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Undertow

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic? Why not start with a bang, an Egobang to be exact! /shot
> 
> This fic is a response to the soulmate tattoo!AU going around on tumblr:  
> http://three-minutes-of-ecstacy.tumblr.com/post/130548745737/spookymileskane-au-where-everyone-is-born-with  
> and three-seconds-of-ecstacy's amazing Egobang prompt.  
> http://three-minutes-of-ecstacy.tumblr.com/post/130553364627/arin-and-suzy-have-each-others-tattoos-had-them  
> Read the linked posts for context!
> 
> Thanks firstly to three-seconds-of-ecstacy, this is all down to you! Thanks for making such an amazing prompt and allowing me to write it (and being so happy when I DM'd you the first bit! you're the reason I kept going and wouldn't let myself drop it :3)  
> Also huge thanks to my buddy ClarionGlass, who helped me write the last bit of this and wouldn't let me get down on myself about it. You're the best, dude.
> 
> Go forth and be egobang'd.

  
Sometimes he catches himself admiring the way the tattoos intermingle on her shoulder, the mandala fading as it curves around the the familiar little pattern of bubbles that hide in the crook of her scarab's wing. The black marks, ones created by needle instead of nature, wind around the tiny pattern that flushes with pink, almost as if to frame it proudly for display.

I mean, surely he's allowed to stare and all, thinks Arin to himself as he catches himself watching the black ripples on Suzy's arm instead of the movie he was, in theory, paying attention to. That's what wives are for, right? But it's still nicer than he'd admit to himself, to see something of him etched in her skin, a little reminder of the way they've marked each other on the rest of their lives. Till death do they part, and all that. The tattoo on his skin that mirrors her ankle, the only one on his body, is hidden in the curve of his elbow, the butterfly with a little death's head in the shape of its wing, and he wears it just as proudly as he has since it appeared when he was sixteen. A little girly, maybe, but he likes it.

A climactic noise rumbles through the speakers and his gaze flicks back to the TV, hand tugging through his hair absently as he settles back on the couch. Before long Danny pokes his head through the door after a long (and probably arduous) Steam Train session with Ross, looking a little worse for wear.

‘Can I?’

‘Of course, dude.’

Suzy mumbles something sleepy and incoherent in the way of an admission against Arin's shoulder and Danny grins, tired circles under his eyes. His lanky frame sneaks between the couch and the TV before he plops himself down, cocking one of his gross sneaker-ed feet on the coffee table as he settles back into the couch on Arin's other side.

With a meaningful quirk of her dark eyebrows, Suzy motions with a hand, suddenly dangerously awake.

‘Foot. Off.’

Danny lolls his head to the side in an effort to argue, eyes rolling, but it's pretty obvious who rules the Grump Space, and with an overdramatic grumble he removes his feet. With a cocky grin at the edge of his features, Arin quickly steals his spot, bare feet propped on the table and toes wiggling cockily, stretching his arm over the back of the sofa in that half-mocking air of confidence that's as easy to fall into as breathing. And of course, Arin knows that it's only the shoes on the table that Suzy protests to, and as predicted his wife doesn't say a word.

Danny pouts overdramatically and turns back to the movie, and even though Arin can tell there's nothing sour underneath it there's still a little burr underneath his skin, niggling away at him. He can't stand it when Danny's mad at him, even mockingly. Dan’s face looks wrong when it isn’t smiling, alien and strange without the little pucker of laugh lines at the corner of his eyes.

‘C'mon, man,’ he whispers, needling Danny with an elbow, and he relaxes, a smile quirking the edge of his mouth.

But, through the movie, as Suzy dozes against his shoulder, Arin notices Danny's eyes fall from the screen, his long fingers wrestling with each other in his lap. He's staring intermittently at the fluffy, fairyfloss-pink bubbles on Suzy's shoulder, brow knitting like he's trying to do some weird complex math or something, and sometimes his eyes dart down to the matching mark on Arin’s ankle. It hasn't been lost on Arin this whole time that Danny's never shown him his ankle tattoo, of course, but he never really made anything of it, not before now anyway. Some people were shy about that stuff, and knowing Dan it was a real intricate dick and balls or something, whatever, who cares right?

Yawning, Arin rolls his eyes in an attempt to clear his head and looks back to the movie, rolling his wrist as his hand falls back into his lap from the back of the couch. The back of his hand had been weirdly itchy for the past couple days, but it was a strange sensation - something between a pimple waiting to burst and the cathartic itching of an insect bite, a feeling that felt oddly familiar but that he couldn’t place anywhere. He scratches absentmindedly at his wrist in the dimness of the lounge, watching idly as the movie wound towards its climax - he hardly even remembered what it was called, some action movie bullshit - and somehow he can feel it imperceptibly when Danny falters next to him. His eyes falling from Suzy's shoulder, Danny’s eyes catch Arin’s scratching fingers and his breathing cuts off, his long fingers balling into fists as some weird recognition grows in his eyes and his expression goes icy.

‘You okay, dude?’ he says, leaning a little closer, his voice low and careful.

Danny starts backwards like he’s been shot, something strange and wild and anxious in his eyes as they finally meet Arin’s, and although he tries not to see it Arin can’t help but notice his hands are shaking. ‘Fine, man, I’m fine,’ he replies, voice too loud and too sharp, hands waving in hurried dismissal. ‘I’ll… I’ll be back in a minute.’

Suze blinks awake beside him as the door swings shut and Danny disappears down the hallway, and she frowns up at her husband.

‘What’s up with him, baby?” she asks, but Arin’s already looking down, his eyes falling down to his wrist where Dan’s gaze had been as he swallows past the sudden rock in his throat.

‘... and what the hell is that on your wrist?’

_***_

He and Suzy talk about it later, the fact that he has someone else’s tattoo on him now apparently, and she’s not as mad as he thought she’d be, as he thought he deserved. Wispy blue and black tendrils curl around a tiny red star on the back of his wrist, seeming to taunt him, and he shoves his right arm under himself, not wanting to see it.

It helps that they both have no idea how this happened - Suzy knows she can trust Arin’s word, and when he says he doesn’t know who the tattoo belongs to, that he’s never seen anything like it in his life, she believes him. She spends the time talking him down just like she always does, because goddamn it, she’s an angel, saying that she knows he didn’t mean to, that nothing has to change and that polyamory is a thing anyway so maybe they could try it? His gut tightens in immediate tension at the word, his mind exploring the idea without truly letting himself think about it, just tinkering away at it surreptitiously as pieces begin to fall into place.

‘What if it’s just a mistake or whatever?’ he protests, curled up next to her on the bed and trying to avoid her gaze. ‘That shit happens. Probably.’

‘Maybe it is, but maybe it isn’t.’ Suzy smiles, and there’s more certainty in her expression with every word. ‘And no matter what,’ she says, her fingers stroking tentatively over the new pigment in his skin, ‘I just want you to be happy.’

‘But I love  _you_ , Suze,’ he protests, wanting to wrench his hand away from her but not being able to bring himself to break the contact.

‘I know, baby. But if this tattoo ends up belonging to someone you do have a crush on,’ Arin scowls at the idea, his bangs flopping over his face, and Suzy’s lips purse into a tiny secret smile as if she already knows. ‘If it does, then why can’t you be happy loving both of us? I’m happy, you’re happy, it’s a win-win.’

‘Til death do us part,’ he says flatly, hating the fact that he was wavering under her earnest green gaze.

‘Hey, dummy,’ she says gripping his chin lightly and making him look at her. ‘You know as well as I do how right that is. I love you, baby, and I know  _exactly_ how big that heart of yours is. You could be in love with me and forty other people and  _still_ have room, and everything between us would be exactly the same.’

How in hell he deserves to be married to this perfect woman he has no idea, but when she leans down to kiss him earnestly, enveloping him in her perfume and her warmth, he can’t help but smile against her, feeling for all the world like he’s sixteen again.

‘Love you,’ he mumbles, pretending to sulk at her being right as always, and she laughs from where she’s curled up against his chest. The sound sends some kind of stupid catharsis straight over his heart, and he huffs out a breath, half sigh and half relief as the thoughts in his head grow quieter.

If only he could figure out who the hell this new tattoo belonged to.

  
***

The Grump Space isn’t nearly as weird as Danny expects the next day.

It’s not as weird as he feels like he deserves, anyway - surely the calamity he feels hovering over his head had to fall sometime - but everything was the same as usual. Barry is his saintly self (and Ross, completely unsurprisingly, steals all the milk when Danny tried to make everyone coffee, the asshole), and Arin, Danny watching keenly, sketches storyboards at his desk all day with an unreadeable expression, smudgeguard hiding his wrist in an awfully convenient way.

_Does he know? What if he figured it out?_

In hindsight, co-ordinating his Danny Sexbang outfit with the colours and shapes of his tattoo was an outrageously bad idea.

Danny can’t ignore the fact that his right ankle is red and swollen under his too-long socks, red from scratching at it all night as if he could excavate it from his skin, wishing that he could just poof out of Arin’s life and leave no-one the wiser. Even now, from his spot on the couch amid the piles of blankets, he itches absently at his ankle through the fabric, imagining the swirls of ink disappearing from his skin and Arin’s, melting away and leaving them be. Letting everything be normal again.

But not the tiny whirl of bubbles, hidden on his neck underneath his wild mane of pure Judaism. He couldn’t bear but to leave them untouched, something in him unable to marr the reminder of who left them there.

_I’m a fucking sick bastard._

He spends the day on the couch with his macbook, his brain jumping manically from one subject to another without pause, nearly sweating with the anxiety that Arin knows, he has to have figured it out, and all it’s going to take is one confrontation and then everything’s over. Their friendship, his job, the ache in his sides from laughing harder than humans are probably designed to. All of it.

And he’ll be back to being a pathetic stoner who jumps around in spandex with his best friend the ninja.

Which is fine, he guesses, NSP’s his calling and he loves Brian a stupid amount, but even imagining the hole in his life that would be there causes such a flash of pain in his chest that he nearly doubles over on the couch.

For a little while there he blames Arin - at least Danny’s single, but the dude’s married? How could his mind even wander from the gorgeous creature that was Suzy? But Dan’s let his mind wander to Arin far too many times to count, to what could possibly be, and as much as he ignores the frantic tremolo of his heart, the fact is that he’s far more scared of the fact that maybe Arin likes him back after all this time.

He’s been adorned by those floaty bubbles for an awful long while now, for one thing, and although one on hand it’s maddening and stupid and  _painful_ to hide himself away from him, it’s easy. It’s habitual and safe and almost comforting to rest back in normality, to feel the familiar hitch in his chest as Arin says something ridiculously gay in recording and all he can imagine is wrestling the young man to the floor and make him come good on all the bullshit he spouts, but before now, it was only ever fantasy. Now reality was far too close, painfully bright in his vision, and he wrenches his thoughts away, trying desperately to get ahold of himself.

Maybe it’s a mistake. Arin loves him as a friend, and the tattoo just appears out of brotherly love or some shit. Or it’s just a crush, one that would fade in time even as the flush of bubbles on Danny’s neck seems to grow pinker by the day.

But if not, he was a homewrecking piece of shit, and there’s absolutely no way he should even remotely be thinking about shattering this life they’ve built. He would suffer in fucking silence for the rest of his days if it meant his best friend could be happy. Arin would be suffering too, he realises with a pang in his chest, if he was wrong about why the tattoo was there in the first place, but he’s just going to have to. Neither of them can hurt each other like that, or Suzy for that matter.

Never.

He hates himself for thinking about it, hates the fact that his gaze darts to Arin’s face without him asking it to, watching for the swirls on his wrist and any hint that they might actually be there for a reason, hates that whenever Suzy walks in the room his gut churns with jealousy and self-hatred because god Danny loves that woman and he wishes he could despise her for how happy she makes her husband just by existing.

As if his thoughts had conjured her, Suzy’s perfume wafts through the air in front of him and his head jerks upward, suddenly very aware that his fingers had long been drumming a maddening beat on his keyboard without typing anything remotely coherent. Her gaze is far too penetrating for his liking as she stares him down critically, and he shrinks back from her without realising.

‘Uh, what’s up, Suze?’

‘Y’know what I think would be a really good idea?’ she says, all too determinedly, her gaze unwavering. ‘Beach trip. All of us. Tomorrow.’

‘Yeah!’ said Arin, emerging from behind his tablet, that stupid puppy-faced gaze brightening. ‘It’s so gross already, we should totally get out of the office while we figure out what’s wrong with the AC.’

For one thing, thinks Danny, beaches are stupid and sandy and full of perfect-looking tan people, but it’s is only a tiny blip through his mind because the main reason his heart rate is picking up and he’s squirming under Suzy’s gaze is that the incriminating pattern he tried so hard to hide was on his ankle.

And a beach trip meant no shoes, and no way of hiding it. Not unless he wanted to look like a Huge Nerd™ who wears shoes on the beach.

_Shit._

Suzy watches him flounder with a perfect eyebrow raised but Arin’s behind him before he even notices, laying a warm hand on his shoulder. Danny fights with every iota of his frayed nerves the urge to suck in a sharp breath at the contact. Two days ago, this would have been normal. Two days ago, he would have been exactly as good at ignoring this as always, the electric jitters that break in fireworks down his spine at the gentle, reassuring squeeze of his fingers.

‘Hey, man, I know you’re scared of the water, but you don’t even have to go in if you don’t wanna. And you know I’d straight up punch a shark for you if you needed me to, right?’

 _Oh yeah. Shit. Beaches totally have oceans._ In his panic, and in the sudden knowledge that nope, he couldn’t just sweep this under the rug forever until he died and went to hell for being the worst best friend in history, he’d forgotten that other thing he was scared of. Those things with the big stupid noses and big stupid maneating teeth and stuff. Sharks.

He shudders, half flinching away from Arin’s hand out of habit and half trying desperately not to imagine sharp teeth closing around him, danger hiding unseen under the water. His throat hitches as he tries to remember how to breathe.

‘I, uh…’

‘I promise, dude,’ Arin says, softer but persistent, leaning down over the back of the couch to try and catch Danny’s eye. ‘Nothing’s gonna hurt you.’

_You mean when I go in the water, or when I ruin both your marriage and our friendship?_

But he can’t back out now, not with Suzy blinking at him expectantly and Arin’s face so understanding and patient that he wants to rip his own heart out.

‘I guess, yeah?’ he finally forces out, tentatively looking up at Arin. ‘Should be fun to just hang on the beach with everyone, right?’

Suzy straightens up with a little flounce, proud and self-satisfied, and Arin grins, the full-blown joy in his features criminally devastating.

‘This is gonna be awesome, dude.’

_Fuckin’ A._

_***_

The waves nip at his toes, Danny shivering as they wash over harmlessly with little milk-teeth mouthings at his ankles before they creep backwards over the wet sand. Ocean stretches as far as he can see, squinting into the too-bright horizon, and the surface of the water is all chipped marble and smooth swell, tiny waves jutting from the surface.

By some miracle, he’s managed to hide his ankle thus far - some combination of avoiding Arin completely and standing all weird with his feet crossed at the ankles (for once having feet that could house a small family of hamsters was a gift), and bless Arin for being so unobservant because he hardly seems to notice, chatting excitedly with Suzy about something too fast for his ears and his slow, tense mind to follow.

While Arin’s helping Suzy set up the towels and the picnic basket Danny disappears, making his way towards the water even though it’s the last thing he wants to do, every fibre of his being screaming to run in the opposite direction.

_Just a little further. Once I get in the water he won’t see. Just keep going, Danny, you can do this, it’s just water._

Danny edges closer to where the wave has receded to and enters the water again, the salt stinging against the raw, irritated skin of his ankle, but he can’t stop there. The fear of the coming confrontation, one that he knew was imminent but that he wanted desperately to avoid, wars with his paranoia of what lies underneath the waves, but he ploughs onward until the water’s at mid-calf and his feet are only blurry smudges.

 _Not now,_ he thinks, and it’s almost a prayer.  _It’s bound to happen sometime, but just… not now._

Arin appears behind him like he’s been summoned.

'Dude, it's not Endless Ocean, I swear there isn't anything lurking to kill you." He shrugs, grinning, as he sloshes into the water, outpacing Danny until his lower half is almost completely submerged. “And if there is, it’d totally eat me first.”

Watching him with a cocked eyebrow, Arin rolls his eyes in mock exasperation, planting a hand on his hip. Before Danny can think Arin grabs his hand and tugs, the hold nearly throwing him off balance as Arin wades deeper into the swell, and oh  _god_ it’s the hand with his tattoo on it and that nearly breaks him but he sucks in a breath and splashes him half-heartedly with a grin despite how threadbare and desperately frantic he feels.

‘God, you’re an asshole,’ he manages, shaking his head at how Arin still makes everything easier despite how stupidly complicated everything is, and he takes a step, trying to ignore the squiggle of happiness in his chest as Arin’s face lights up at the achievement. He battles against imagining unknown terrors under the water but follows the man one step ahead of him as he inches further, the waves surging and receding as slowly his calves are wet, then his knees, and finally his waist as he approaches his limit. Arin notices the growing strain in his features and stops pulling him forward, Danny trying to ignore the pang of regret as he lets go.

‘Well, I’m definitely in danger of getting eaten by a huge ocean monster now, you happy?’ he says, only mostly joking, letting his fingers swish through the water near his torso.

‘Only if the huge ocean monster is me,’ Arin shoots back with an outrageously over-the-top vaudeville wiggle of his eyebrows, and Danny breaks into laughter, falling strangely back into place.

They stay in the waves as the sun edges further through the sky, Arin sometimes going deeper into the swell but always returning to Danny until they both finally emerge from the ocean, Danny almost floating with the mixture of exhaustion and happiness coursing through his bloodstream. His brain’s almost sore, throbbing like an aching muscle, but he’s proud of himself for battling his fears for at least that long, and being around Arin is way less exhausting when he isn’t worrying about what the shared patterns on their skin mean. He has to admit the day in the sunshine has done him good.

Arin stops suddenly in front of him as they leave the water, and Danny peers around him, trying to see the expression on his suddenly stock-still face. He’s looking down, too far down for anything other than the big incriminating splash of colour on his ankle, and the noise of all the pieces falling together in Arin’s head is deafening, too loud for Danny’s frayed senses as he stands on the edge of the water, wet sand dissolving under his toes.

Slowly, almost painfully slow, Arin’s head turns, and Danny can feel the calamity above his head grow dark and cold, the thunder drawing closer. The flicker of emotions across Arin’s face almost gives Danny hope for a few drawn-out milliseconds, but when sorrow finally settles into place he hears the first rumble of the oncoming storm and braces for impact.

‘Of course.’ Arin’s voice is quiet and small, more sigh that words, defeated and worn as the words wrap around the new certainty in his voice. His eyes are downcast and Danny can’t understand why, fingers twitching with the need to reach out and touch and  _fix_.

Saying words is like trying to force silly putty through sandpaper, but he tries anyway.

‘O-- of course, what?’

Arin smiles, his gaze lifting, the expression so small and heartbreakingly fragile that it’s all Danny can do to stay put.

‘Of course it’s your tattoo, dude’

A million questions rebound in Danny’s mind but he forces himself to be silent, even though the air around them feels like a pair of strangling hands.  
‘I know… you must want to just up and leave right now and I guess I can’t stop you but just… just give me time dude, I - I mean, I know it must be weird, but I swear I can handle it, I’ll make this go away, I’d never force you to do anything-’

‘Arin,’ Danny manages to choke out, physically unable to hear the plaintive tone in his words anymore, and his heart mangles for a second in his chest when he imagines Suzy, patient wonderful Suzy, but he can’t stop the words falling out and he doesn’t even know if he has the strength to try anymore.

‘Did you… did you seriously think for a second that I could be around you this long and not fall in love with you?’

He wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all. He’s been so marked by Arin’s soul for so long that it’s hard to imagine being without those little bubbles on his neck, absolutely ludicrous that he doesn’t understand just how much Danny loves the sight of the little star on the back of his hand as much as he wishes it didn’t have to complicate things.

He had no idea how someone so brilliant could be so stupid.

To half of his brain it felt weird to turn, grabbing Arin’s hand and forcing it into his hair, the younger man’s face almost dumbstruck, but the other half clicked into place when he pulled upwards, revealing the perfect whorl of bubbles on his skin. A bomb could have dropped next to him and he wouldn’t have noticed, drowning in Arin’s touch, drinking in the soft gasp through his teeth as his wrist goes slack in Danny’s grip and he lets go.

Arin’s voice is so soft he can barely even hear.

‘How long?’

Danny chokes out a laugh.

‘Too long, dude. Didn’t you ever wonder why I was so aggressively ‘no homo’ back in the early days? I mean, growing up when I did, being called a fag, whatever, but when suddenly I get my best friend’s tattoo on my neck?’ He shakes his head, exhaling something approximating a laugh and a sigh. ‘Thought I was getting some weird rash, didn’t I? But then, I thought I was straight too, and I was pretty damn wrong on that front.’

Arin blinks up at him, frozen in time.

‘How long?’ Danny breathes back with a hook of a smile, parrotting his own words back at him, body flushing with the reward of Arin’s upturned gaze and a smile that is so heartbreakingly hesitant he feels stars burst in his chest.

‘Three days, but y’know, I think the system’s broken, ‘cause it’s been way longer than that.’

Danny dithers, torn between letting Arin’s words sink in and battling the haunting image of Suzy burnt into his brain.

‘We’ll have to do something about that.’

‘Yeah, dude.’

Breathing a sigh, Danny rubs at his forehead, and Arin frowns in question at the sudden defeat on his features, hand reaching out into empty air as if to touch him but falling short.

‘Dude… I… You know now, I love you, always have.’ He hates the fact that he savours the words as they fall, hates that Arin’s eyes light up when he says it. ‘But maybe it would be better if I disappeared. You’re married, dude, we can never-’

‘Oh. That? That’s what you’re worried about?’

‘...Yeah, dude. I mean. You love each other. We don’t have a choice, there’s no way either of us could do that to her.’

Arin rolls his eyes, and Danny blinks back, frowning for real now, as Arin grabs his hand and tows him up the beach. ‘Suze!’ he yells at the top of his lungs, and Danny instantly has to fight the urge to run and hide, to shake Arin’s hand loose and make stammering excuses, to bury that part of himself again permanently this time. But Arin’s grip is steady and he gives Dan’s fingers a reassuring squeeze as Suzy’s head pops out of the car and hurries over, giving her husband a playful slap on the shoulder.

‘God,  _finally_ ,’ she says, dimpling up at Danny - whose world was going batshit insane, apparently - and taking Arin’s other hand. ‘Your tattoo’s nice, Danny, I’m glad you don’t have to hide it anymore. Plus now you can act normal again. That shit sucked.’

‘...What?’

Arin grins, thumb stroking soft circles over the back of his hand.

‘We’ve decided - well, Suze decided, actually - that we should give polyamory a try, since, y’know, I’m in love with you and all.’

Suzy takes in the nonplussed expression on Danny’s face and winks, mouthing ‘Be happy’ to her husband as she saunters back to the car, and Danny has to fight the warm glow that’s started in his belly at Arin’s words because what the hell is going on right now?

Arin quirks an eyebrow, giving their tangled hands a squeeze, and Danny loses his grip on his train of thought. If he tried to articulate freaking anything right now he’d be a stuttering mess, but when Arin snakes an arm around his waist and presses his lips to Danny’s cheek with a soft chuckle that washes over him like warm honey, he swiftly decides that he doesn’t care. 

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is super welcome! I'd love to improve any way I can <33  
> Thankyou for reading!


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